Dust it Off Bloghop-- What I Learned

For the third, and last, day of the Dust it Off Bloghop, I'm supposed to post what I learned from WANDER. That's an interesting way to end, since I find that I've learned a lot thanks to this bloghop, looking back on the novel and thinking critically about it. I've had a lot of fun over the past couple days, and I'll definitely be willing to do more hops like this! Hmmm... I could even write a series about 'What I learned from my trunked novel.' We'll see. :)

Anyways, here are five things I learned from WANDER.

1- I CAN finish a novel. This was a big one for me. WANDER was the first novel I ever finished solo. I had written hundreds of pages on a fanfic before abandoning it, and then I had co-authored a mystery novel with a friend, but WANDER was my first personal project that I actually completed. Also, it was a great morale booster because I wrote the whole thing in 19 days and had only been brainstorming for several months. In short, it took me less than four months to create the novel, contrasted with years for my previous attempts.

2- Finishing the writing ain't the end of the process. Now, I never actually thought that writing goes straight from first draft to bookshelf, but this was a real eye-opener to how imperfect a 'finished' novel could be. While there's a lot of elements I love about WANDER, I also see all its flaws, in plot, character, and writing, and even now that I've trunked it I feel like I can't show anyone because I want to edit it first.

3- KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). This is an acronym that my dad loves, and one that I need to consider when plotting my novels. I think the biggest problem with WANDER was simply how complicated it was. Everything made sense by the end of the third book, but for the rest it was just this huge tangled mess full of unrealistic elements. I think most readers would have given up rather than waiting for the end of the third book.

4- Religion matters. Another 'problem' with WANDER was that it dealt with Muslims and terrorists (and terrorists being Muslim.) While I did treat Muslims fairly (I had several Muslims read and enjoy the story) it is extremely hard to balance religions while writing for the secular market. For religious reasons, I think WANDER wouldn't have made it in the secular market, but a Christian publisher might have taken it.

5- What you learn matters more than the end result. When I finished WANDER I was so excited about finally having a finished product, something to perfect and then query with. Almost two years later, I still haven't started querying, but I've learned a lot about writing. Maybe, at some point, I'll re-do WANDER and try to get it published. Right now, I have no interest in doing that. Writing WANDER was just what I needed: it gave me a confidence boost, taught me about the writing process/plotting/religious themes, and basically just gave me experience as a writer. I've heard that you need to write a million words to become proficient as a writer. Whether or not that's true, it's undeniable that the more you write, the better you write. WANDER may never see the light of day, but the experience it gave me will shine in all my future novels.

Dust it Off Bloghop-- Excerpt

For Day 2 of the Dust it Off Bloghop, I'll be posting a short excerpt from WANDER. This segment comes fairly early on in the book, when two of the main characters (Ephraim and Zakiya) are just meeting each other.

“Impressive,” Ephraim said, flicking on the light switch. It was time for his performance to begin. He opened the door to his study a little wider. “I haven’t seen an assassin that talented in years.”

He stared up at the ceiling for a split second, then back to Zakiya. “Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an assassin that impressive,” he admitted. “Of course, no one’s ever tried to assassinate me before, so you would also be the first assassin I’ve ever seen, but still, impressive.  By the way, why were you trying to kill me?”

Ephraim could feel his heart pounding in his chest. He had never been more afraid in his entire life. The young woman still stood, like a tiger ready to pounce, the moonlight gleaming off the dagger in her hand.

He had convinced his father and his bodyguards that his ability to talk his way out of anything would even work on a trained killer like Zakiya. He would surprise her, put her off guard. They must have been convinced that he would do it, because his bodyguards were now taking a night off, probably drinking in some ill-reputed bar.

Ephraim wished he was so sure.

“Come on, now,” he continued, feeling like as long as he could talk, he’d be alright. “What’s wrong with you? Cat got your tongue? I asked you a question.”

Zakiya replied, her voice deep and slow. “And I’m deciding whether I should answer it.”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Ephraim asked cheerfully. “If you’re going to kill me, the least you could do is tell me why.” He noted with satisfaction that his light banter was working. She was confused, frozen in place. The knife was held out at a useless angle, neither attacking nor defending. For the moment, she had no plan.

I'm not quite sure why I like this segment. After all, the whole assassin-idea is a little unrealistic. I guess what I really loved was Ephraim; he's probably my favourite character in the novel. He seems really cocky and self-assured, and he always has a confident reply to anything you can throw at him. The thing is, he's actually insecure because of a lot of things in his personal past. I think I love Ephraim because I've always wished I could be like him when really I'm the opposite. I'm really secure in who I am, but I feel like I appear insecure, or at least am easily flustered. 

Enough of my personal psychoanalysis. While Ephraim may seem corny sometimes because I had a hard time writing him, he still remains one of my favourite created characters. And I absolutely love the dynamic with him and Zakiya. *sigh* I'm really starting to miss this story...

Dust it Off Bloghop-- Pitch

For the first day in the Dust it Off Bloghop (which was supposed to begin yesterday, but I'm a bit late), I'm going to post the short pitch for my 2010 NaNo novel, WANDER.

If he wanted you dead, you'd be dead by now.
He wants you alive.
He wants you to fail.


While I do sort of like this pitch, in that it's short and creepy and hopefully somewhat enticing, I think it encapsulates exactly what was wrong with the novel. Frankly, WANDER was too confusing. The reader doesn't even know about this mysterious 'he' until near the end of the first book. No one knows exactly why he wants them to fail until near the end of the third book. While mystery is good, in this case there was just too much that didn't really make sense and seemed unrealistic. The end of the third book brought everything together, but most readers aren't going to wait that long.

I have another version of the short pitch:

Ida and Wander have been best friends for a month now. The strange thing is, they've never met. When the internet-pals decide to finally meet via webcam, Wander is kidnapped and Ida is threatened with the same fate if she tells the police.


This pitch has the same problem. As the reader quickly learns, Wander doesn't really get kidnapped; it's a lot more complicated with that. The thing is, the plot of the story is far too confusing to try and describe in a short pitch. And if the story is that confusing, it's probably going to be too confusing for the reader to follow.

So, there's day one of the Dust it Off Bloghop. It's making me a little sad to take out WANDER and criticize it like this; after all, it was the first novel I ever completed solo. I do still love the characters and the plot (despite its many flaws) so it's kind of sad to treat it as nothing more than a learning experience. However, that is one of the wonderful things about being a writer. Maybe no one else will ever get to learn about Wander and Ida and Ephraim and all my other characters... but they'll always be in my heart (no matter how cheesy that sounds).

Long Time No See

Hello everyone!

The title of this blog post is, sadly, very appropriate. Apparently I haven't blogged since December! Even then, it was pretty infrequent. All my good intentions to keep posting just went down the tubes as soon as school hit. It was my first year away from home and I was working really hard to keep my average up in order to get a scholarship. Since school ended last week (and I did get my A average!) I'm back at home and ready to start blogging again.

This week, I've decided to participate in the Dust it Off Bloghop. Tomorrow, Saturday, and Monday I'll take another look at WANDER (my 2010 NaNo novel). Tomorrow I'll post the pitch, Saturday will have a short excerpt, and then on Monday I'll talk about what I learned from WANDER.

I've also got some exciting news to share with you guys. On Tuesday, I found a wonderful-- and completely unexpected-- email in my inbox and I'm just dying to tell everyone about it. No, I'm not getting a book published, and no, I don't have an agent, but it is a writing opportunity that I'm pretty pumped about. As soon as everything's official, I'll let you all know.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with the promise that I will blog more often. I still have to decide if I want a schedule or not. We'll see. But now, over to you. What sort of posts would you like to see this summer?

Find the Right Agent

 I know that one thing you should never, ever do on your blog is talk about your dream agent. After all, what happens if you query an agent other than her, who then reads your blog and realizes that you’d actually much rather have someone else? For that reason, I’m not going to talk about dream agents. I just want to talk about agents in general to get at the big question: what do you look for in an agent?

I know for unagented authors, sometimes it can seem like just getting any agent at all is a huge thing, so you don’t really care which one. Some days I feel like this: I just really want an agent. But on other days, when I’m being sensible, I realize that I’m young, and finding the right agent who’ll work with me for the rest of my career is going to be really important.

Here are a couple things that I really want in an agent:

- They should be hands-on. I want an editorial agent. I want them to care about helping me make my book as good as it can possibly be.

- They should share my values. This means that I don’t want an agent who reps erotica, or who mainly reps paranormal, or who wants me to amp up the sexual content in my stories. They don’t need to be Christian, but I want them to accept the religious views in my stories.

- I want to get to know their other clients. I want some of their other clients to be ones who I respect; I’ve read their stories and I’ll be proud to be connected to them through the agency.

- They should sell to big presses. Now, I don’t mean exclusively or anything, but it’s my dream to sell to one of the big six, so even if I don’t get there right away, I want that possibility.

Those are all of them that I can think of off the top of my head. Now, how do I find out whether an agent fits these criteria?

- Follow them on twitter. If an agent is hands-on, they’ll mention stuff about editing client manuscripts, or they might outright call themselves editorial in a twitter chat.

- Follow their blog. Their values will come out that way; I probably don’t want an agent who swears a lot. Also, someone who has a lot of sketchy book covers at the side of their page… nuh uh.

- Read the acknowledgements sections of my favourite books and see who their agents are. Look at the lists of authors on the website; if I don’t recognize any, I’ll normally forget about the agency.

- Go to their website and look at the list of books to see if I recognize any (I mainly read books from big presses). Check out their recent sales and look up the books to find a publisher.

These four suggestions are great ways to get to know agents to see if you really want them to represent you. There are lots of great agents out there who are amazing at what they do, but just not right for me. I’m not saying you should be too choosy, but it does pay to do your research.

Over to you, my readers. How is your Great Agent Hunt going? Any tips for finding agents to query? What do you look for in an agent? 

Cut the Boring

Recently, I entered the first 1250 words of my WIP, SIMULATE in a workshop on Adventures in Children’s Publishing. It’s a great opportunity; five writers submit pieces, then receive critiques from their fellow participants and two professional writers. The stories were first posted two Mondays ago, my first revision went up this Monday, and the second revision (which I have yet to write) will go up next Monday.

Probably the best thing I learned from this workshop so far is to not let my beginning be boring. That may sound obvious, but I ignored that crucial piece of advice. My first chapter has a crazy cliffhanger that has my friends clamouring for more months after I read it to them. However, the first 1250 words felt a little blah. Here’s what people had to say about it:

 I'd like more focus on the action, as well as perhaps a sense of urgency. Right now, it feels like just another routine job for your narrator, 

It has a happy-go-lucky feel that doesn't seem threatening yet.

So far, you’re explaining challenges that aren’t really challenges, because everything can just be redone. Rather than building interest or tension, you are making it sound like the worst they have to cope with is an untied shoe. That isn’t what you’re saying, but that is the feeling you are accidentally conveying. 

The first thing I thought when I read these comments was, ‘Yeah… this is a routine job for her. It is kinda happy-go-lucky; pretty much the worst thing that could happen is an untied shoe. That’s what’s going on.’

My second thought was, Why? Why do I need to begin the book with a routine job? Why do I begin with such a happy-go-lucky feel? Why do my readers want to read about someone whose worst problem is an untied shoe? Yes, the end of my chapter throws a huge wrench in everything, but there’s absolutely no reason why I need to wait until the end of my first chapter to hook readers. If I wait that long, I may never hook them at all.

In short, there’s absolutely no reason for my book to be boring. The excuse ‘Well, that’s how it’s supposed to be’ is no excuse at all. Yes, my book was supposed to begin with a routine job for my narrator. But why? Why start the book off with something boring? Instead, I should be building tension from the very first page up until the crazy cliffhanger.

There’s no reason for your book to be boring, either. Next time someone says it’s boring and you think ‘Yes, but that’s the way the story goes’ ask yourself Why? If there’s no reason for it to be boring other than the fact that you’ve always imagined it that way, then maybe it’s time to change your story. The tension should be stretched to the max at every point in your story. Don’t let any part be boring just because that’s the way you’ve always thought it should be.

If you want to see just how boring my original draft was, and how I fixed it, check out my story on Adventures in Children’s Publishing. Here’s the original draft, and here’s the revised version, which I would absolutely love comments on! 

Christian Posters

A friend of mine who's a really talented artist made up some cool Christian posters awhile ago. Now, I know this is a writing blog and these posters have absolutely nothing to do with writing, but I felt like these posters have a wider audience than just a few people on facebook. He gave me permission to put them on the blog, so I decided to show them to all of you.

I thought this one was need because it's a symbol we all see so often. Now, whenever I see the recycling symbol, this is what I think of. 

I'm assuming this is actually the Ford slogan (but I know nothing about cars, so I could be wrong.) If so, this is really clever. I know some people don't approve of this poster because they think it makes fun of God, but I think it really just shows how pathetic Ford is next to our Lord. 

Now, I hate UFC (I think it's stupid) so I think this poster is cool because whenever I hear about UFC, instead of thinking about two guys fighting each other, I think about God instead.

This one's just clever. :)

What do you guys think? Feel free to share. :)